RALEIGH, N.C. — On March 23, Chief United States District Choose Richard E. Myers II sentenced Manuel Alejandro Vitela-Romero, 36, a citizen of Mexico residing in Johnston County, to time served plus one yr of supervised launch. The sentence follows Vitela-Romero’s responsible plea to immigration fraud. Vitela-Romero was additionally judicially ordered faraway from the US.
The case was prosecuted pursuant to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removing Operations (ERO) Operation False Haven. Operation False Haven is an ongoing initiative with Homeland Safety Investigations’ (HSI) Doc and Profit Fraud Process Power and the U.S. legal professional’s workplace that identifies and prosecutes baby molesters and different egregious felons who have been convicted of prior crimes after petitioning for immigration advantages.
In accordance with courtroom information, on March 23, 2019, Vitela-Romero knowingly made a materially false assertion on an software for an immigration profit in response to the query, “Have you ever ever … engaged in [a]ny sort of sexual contact or relations with any one who was being compelled or threatened?” He answered “No.”
Opposite to Vitela-Romero’s assertion, he had taken indecent liberties with a 13-year-old lady on Aug. 8, 2018, and was convicted of the crime Nov. 8, 2022, within the Superior Courtroom of North Carolina in Johnston County. He was sentenced to a time period of imprisonment of between 16 and 29 months and ordered to register as a intercourse offender.
U.S. Legal professional for the Jap District of North Carolina Michael Easley made the announcement. ERO and HSI officers assigned to the Doc Profit Fraud Process Power investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Legal professional Sebastian Kielmanovich prosecuted the case.
ERO will search Vitela-Romero’s elimination from the U.S. following time served related along with his current conviction.
Since 2019, Operation False Haven has resulted in 56 felony circumstances, 26 civil circumstances, 21 convictions, 15 judicial revocations of citizenship, and 7 judicial elimination orders towards defendants convicted of crimes involving serial rape, baby molestation, incest, baby pornography, kidnapping, narcotics trafficking, cash laundering, tax fraud, prescription fraud, embezzlement, aggravated id theft and elder abuse.
As certainly one of ICE’s three operational directorates, ERO is the principal federal regulation enforcement authority in control of home immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to guard the homeland via the arrest and elimination of those that undermine the security of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration legal guidelines, and its major areas of focus are inside enforcement operations, administration of the company’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who’ve acquired closing orders of elimination. ERO’s workforce consists of greater than 7,700 regulation enforcement and non-law enforcement assist personnel throughout 25 home discipline workplaces and 208 areas nationwide, 30 abroad postings, and a number of momentary responsibility journey assignments alongside the border.
For extra information and data on how ERO Atlanta carries out its immigration enforcement mission in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, comply with us on Twitter @EROAtlanta.
